Kelley didn’t mind that she still had to help out backstage, even though she was now playing a lead. She was good with her hands and she hummed as she plugged in the glue gun and went to work peeling back the faux fur on the left ear of Bottom’s ass head. It kept drooping in front of her face in their scenes together.
The wave of arctic air hit her like a physical assault.
“Hello, Kelley.” The voice was sonorous with a faint crackling hiss. “I am Auberon, King of the Unseelie Court of the Realm of Faerie. I am also your father.”
Kelley felt a surge of fear tighten her stomach and willed her hands not to shake. She’d been half expecting this. She looked up from her work.
“My father was a doctor.”
The Faerie king chuckled. “A healer of the sick. How noble. You do not get sick. You have no need of such creatures. And I am your father. None other.”
“My father was a doctor,” she said again. Her hand went white-knuckled on the glue gun as she squeezed out a bead of melted adhesive along the base of the ear. “When I was four years old, he taught me how to properly bandage my knee when I skinned it. My mother showed me later how to take the dressing off without it hurting. What have you ever done for me? They were my parents and they loved me. How dare you tell me that they weren’t!”
Auberon took a step inside the room, over her threshold, and Kelley felt the clover charm at her throat spark and grow warm.
She glared balefully at the king. “Now that I’m, what, almost an adult? You suddenly appear in a puff of smoke and you want to assert some sort of parental claim on me? The Deadbeat Dad from Faerie Land? Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know you. I don’t need to. You might have been responsible for my creation, but you certainly had nothing to do with what I’ve become. I plan on keeping it that way.”
To her surprise, Auberon smiled. “I think that’s an excellent idea,” he said. “And I’d like to help you with that-if you don’t mind.”
Kelley put the glue gun down and stared at the Faerie king. “I beg your pardon?”
“Yes, you would,” he said, a not quite subtle note of warning in his voice. “If you weren’t my daughter.”
Kelley blinked and dropped her gaze back down to the furry head in her lap. The hollow eyes seemed to stare back at her, full of caution.
“Kelley,” the king said, softening his tone, “you know that you are in a great deal of danger because of the simple fact that you are my daughter, do you not?”
“In danger from whom, exactly?”
Auberon spread his hands before him. “There are those who would use you-hurt you-because of what you are. When you were stolen from me, I mourned. I…raged. But eventually, I came to see the theft as a blessing in disguise. I have always tried to govern my folk with a just hand, but the Courts of the realm are fractious and fraught with danger. As long as you remain hidden in the mortal world, you are safe.”
“You found me.”
“I found you quite by accident. And only because Sonny Flannery found you first. But you are right. There are others who might prove as clever. And that puts you in grave danger, my child. You must remain hidden. For your own sake, if not mine.”
“And what if I decide to take my chances?” Kelley asked. “Embrace my heritage-whatever that is?”
“Then you will most likely perish,” the Faerie king said quietly. “I offer you a bargain. I can see to it that you keep your life-the life that you have made for yourself. I can make you as good as mortal. If you let me.”
Kelley’s tone was sharp. “You want to keep me from my birthright?” Almost everything she had learned about the Fair Folk over the last few days had served to scare the hell out of her-the Otherworld sounded like a place full of treachery and danger. But although she was loath to admit it, even among her fears there was a tiny part of her that remembered how truly awesome it had been to ride with the Faerie in Herne’s hunting party. To be clothed in silk and jewels, galloping through the skies with godlike beings so beautiful they seemed made of starlight, laughing…Kelley closed her eyes and banished the seductive thoughts. No. She was pretty sure that she didn’t ever want to become a princess of Faerie, but she wasn’t about to let Auberon know that. “You want to make me ‘normal’? How is that a good deal for me in any way? And in exchange for what? There is nothing you have that I want. Nothing.”
“Not even a certain member of my Janus Guard?”
“You leave Sonny out of this! He’s not yours to give.”
“Perhaps not…” Auberon sank gracefully into a crouch in front of her chair and looked up at her. “But tell me this. How does he look at you now?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Now that he knows? Knows what you are.”
Kelley swallowed to ease a sudden constricting of her throat.
“Oh, my dear girl,” Auberon murmured, the chill in his voice suddenly thawing. She could imagine that she heard actual concern in his words. “I raised Sonny. I’ve watched him ever since he was a child. I know what he thinks of me and of my people. He respects us-and, indeed, there is a small, secret part of him that would sacrifice almost anything for the chance to become one of us. But he is not capable of loving us.”
“Sonny’s not afraid of you.”
“No. He isn’t,” the king agreed. “In fact, he has spent most of his life learning to kill my kind. Our kind. He’s very good at it.”
“Well that’s a marvelous legacy you’ve left him, isn’t it?” Kelley refused to look away. She stared straight into his eyes, the fierceness of her emotions making her hands shake. “Way to raise up the kid you stole.”
Auberon stood, rich garments falling in regal folds all around him. “I do not wish to quarrel with you, Kelley. I merely tell you this to save you further hurt. It is not within Sonny Flannery to love a Faerie queen. He cannot rise above his upbringing; and if you remain as you are, he will begin to resent that which you are. It is inevitable. If you retain your birthright, my dear girl, you will lose him. Maybe not at first and not all at once, but you will. But I can make it so that you need never see that coldness creep into his gaze.”
“Get out.”
“Consider my words.” Auberon turned to go, but hesitated. “You have your mother’s eyes, you know…”
“Get out,” Kelley said again through clenched teeth, closing her eyes as she turned away from him. When she opened them again, she was alone in her dressing room-shaking, a sticky mess of hot glue pooling on the counter in front of her.
“Kelley?” Sonny appeared at the door of her dressing room. “Are you all right? He didn’t…hurt you, did he?”
Sonny…
She had seen how he’d reacted to her in the alleyway. In those brief moments when she’d felt…strange. She remembered the look in his eyes and she could not, in her imagination, convert that expression into one that could convey love. What if Auberon was right?
“Kelley?”
She thought suddenly about the rest of the cast and crew. If Auberon had been in the theater…“Is everyone okay?” She started for the door.
“They’re fine. Bob is out there right now making sure.”
“He’s one of them, isn’t he?” She felt for the charm around her neck, remembering Bob’s words to her yesterday. “Bob…”
“He used to be called Robin. Among other things.”
“Oh, God…,” Kelley whispered.
“He’s sort of the reason you’re in this world in the first place. Actually…we both are, it seems.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“I didn’t either, until he told me just now. Emma-your aunt-once went by another name. Emmaline Flannery.”
“Flannery? But…” Kelley understood then. “It was you. Em took me because Auberon took you.”
“Like I said”-Sonny smiled gently-“the Fates have an odd sense of humor.”
“You look like her,” she said. “Now that I know. I can see her in you. All that stubborn Irish crazy…”
There was a sheen to Sonny’s gray eyes. “I’d like to meet her.”
“You will.”
Sonny cast a glance in the direction of the high window. “It’s getting late.”
“It keeps doing that…” Kelley sighed. “You’re going to leave soon.”
Sonny nodded mutely and helped Kelley to her feet. He stood looking down at her and then took her face in his hands. Turning her head slightly, he ran his fingers through her hair, lifting back the loose auburn curls that fell around her cheeks. “You have his ears,” he said, running a fingertip over one subtle point.
Kelley shivered. “And my mother’s eyes, apparently.”
“Did he say who-”
“No. And I didn’t ask.”
Sonny lowered his hands and they stood there, inches apart, for an awkward moment. Suddenly he gathered her into his arms and held her in a tentative embrace. Kelley felt her heart swell. “I have to go now,” he murmured into her hair. “But…please be careful tonight. While I can’t be there to protect you. Be careful.”